2020 Summ
by MD
Summary: [KagaTsui] Disjointed, dysfunctional friendship unfolding.


The following is from an improv-fic challenge (5 minutes per scene) and is based on a much larger kagatsui fic-in-progress entitled "20/20." I am a Kaga/Tsutsui fangirl. Hear me roar.  
  
"20/20 Summ" A Hikaru no Go fanfiction by MD  
  
* *  
  
When Tsutsui thinks of Kaga, the first thing to come to mind is the flickering glow of fireflies -- tiny, living embers caught on the warm breeze of a midsummer's night. He doesn't know why he thinks of that before anything else, since the first time that he can remember meeting the other boy, Kaga had asked him about crickets, not fireflies.  
  
He'd wondered about whether or not the crickets that Tsutsui's teacher made him bring home four years prior had survived that winter. They had, as far as he knew, but... he'd never met Kaga before that year in grade school... so how could he have known about those crickets? He tried asking back then, but Kaga had only smirked at his question and walked away.  
  
--  
  
There's a battered cage in the back of his closet. It's dusty with neglect and dinged in places from wear and abuse -- from being stuffed beneath boxes and rattled between odd pairs of shoes for so many years. A long time ago, there used to be a science project in that cage... a handful of crickets that he'd taken and set lose in a public park when he realized that they were cold and sad, being trapped inside the wire box. He'd gotten the first and only bad grade he can ever remember having when he did that, but he'll never regret setting them free.  
  
--  
  
"Well, I suppose you'd have to use that thing for something."  
  
Tsutsui has one possession that he treasures above anything else ever casually given to him: a real, hardwood goban that he'd rescued from the garbage when Kaga had quit playing Go. His family wasn't rich by any standard and his parents wanted him to focus primarily on his academics, so they would have balked at the idea of buying him one of his own to play with. It just wasn't in their budget. But the other boy had agreed to give it to him instead of bashing it into smithereens and scrapping it like he'd originally intended to, but only on the condition that Tsutsui would never ask him for a match on it.  
  
While it hurt to hear that, he could hardly refuse such an offer; it was a pity though... Kaga had been the one to teach him how to play in the first place.  
  
"Yes, of course. Thank you."  
  
--  
  
The placement exams have been weighing heavily on his mind for months now, and the very thought of them makes his mind tired and his stomach lurch. Even with so much thorough planning, he can't seem to make himself less anxious. The Go club members all encourage him when they happen upon him in the halls, but their bright smiles and boundless cheer don't seem to do much to pierce that gray cloud that's been hanging over his head -- looming ominously over a certain date circled in red on his desktop calendar.  
  
It probably doesn't help that Kaga acts like the exams are nothing better than pop quizzes. Not everyone is so blessed that they can act like delinquents but have the comprehension and reasoning skills of a genius. Most people don't know that about Kaga, but he does. Very intimately.  
  
Sometimes he wishes he could throttle him for that.  
  
--  
  
Vibrant green. Crisp leaves. A muted cacophony. Smell of Earth.  
  
It's been a while since he's been back here, but he needs it now to soothe his troubled mind. This small clearing has been his refuge since he was very young -- a small thicket on the outskirts of an old park, completely shut off from the rest of the world. He'd found it one quiet autumn evening while tinkering with a holding box that his grandfather had made for him for school. A tiny mesh-covered cage for his science class.  
  
Someone in his class said that the crickets were like children and should be kept safe forever and ever. But he met another child that day who said that children would die if they were imprisoned the way those bugs were, unable to do what they really wanted.  
  
That child showed him this place and then disappeared, like a ghost.  
  
He took the cage that very night and smashed it open.  
  
--  
  
In the far corner of the school library, there is a dusty reference section with numerous texts of frayed, yellowing pages that no one cares to read anymore. Most of the books there contain interesting but trivial information about countries and events unrelated to Japanese history, but they are kept anyway... just in case.  
  
It was there, in a fit of boredom, that Tsutsui Kimihiro one day found a small paperback book, encased in a wrinkled beige dust jacket, boasting the fame of an escape artist named Houdini. Toward the end of his biography, there was a curious note about an incident where his claims to be able to pick any lock in under an hour landed him in a prison cell that he could not budge.  
  
He stayed in that room for hours before he finally realized that the reason that the tumblers weren't clicking right was because the door was left unlocked. He'd been trying too hard and missed the most obvious answer.  
  
Tsutsui wonders if that should mean something to him.  
  
--  
  
"Kaga-nii~!" a delighted giggle. Kazuya is always so happy to see him.  
  
Tsutsui takes off his glasses and rubs the smudges off the lenses with the hem of his shirt, noting out of the blurry corner of his eye that his little sister is dashing to meet their visitor in a psychedelic flurry of skirts. For five years old, she sure has developed her own unique fashion sense.  
  
"Ah, Tetsuo-kun! Okaeri!" Tsutsui's mother always treats him like family, and has ever since that strange summer day when Kaga promised to marry Kazu- chan. Despite what should have been taken as a good-natured joke, she often treated Kaga like he was already her son-in-law. Or her son for that matter.  
  
Tsutsui sighs. He'll be sleeping on the spare futon tonight.  
  
--  
  
There's an art to looking at the world without the help of one's glasses. First you close your eyes, letting the sharp, crisp lines of the world snap cleanly into darkness. Then, behind that perfect veil of nothing, you fade back in and allow the light and colors to come flooding back in in degrees. Slowly open your eyes and let the furry lines and soft, impressionable shapes superimpose themselves over things that once had meaning. Plunging everything into a wonderland of chaos and artistic uncertainty.  
  
When the door opens and Tsutsui takes off his glasses to clean them, this is how he sees Kaga gathering his sister up into his arms -- soft, fuzzy, and unreal. But when the glasses slide back into place and his "family" back into focus... soft, solid, and still unreal...  
  
Maybe it's just Kaga smiling that makes it that way.  
  
--  
  
He has a very odd fondness for the battered goban in the chemistry lab. There's this certain quality about the chipped and dented wood, full of scratches and penmarks, that radiates familiarity and nostalgia -- even if those memories are not his own. Hikaru seems to agree with him, and that's really all he can ask for. Go isn't about the aesthetics of the pieces. It's the aesthetics of strategy and the untapped truths of life hidden in the arrangement of the stones across the board.  
  
This battle-scarred goban has seen many hands and plays... has been through many games and many walks of everyday life. And all that dedication makes it a beautiful thing indeed.  
  
--  
  
If there was ever one thing that he'd like to be able to pride himself on, it would be his critical thinking process and his ability to solve very complex problems -- given the proper space and an open-ended amount of time to do it. He doesn't like pressure, but he has to get better about that. Someone once told him that that was the reason why he wasn't accelerating in Go anymore... because after a certain point, he was no longer able to grow because his doubts were holding him back. He needed to be able to play without thinking too hard, but by the same token, play with a clear mind and a solid intention in his hands. He needed to be able to look at the board for what it was and also for what it wasn't, to do it with the same ease as he did breathing, and know what he wanted it to become.  
  
He needed to be aware of what was in front of him.  
  
He was taken into an empty classroom that day and asked to tell that person what it was that he saw in there in front of him... but when he eventually concluded that it was an empty classroom, Kaga just sighed and left.  
  
--  
  
He's so tired these days... it's difficult trying to keep his schoolwork and his personal time balanced. Or, rather, he should say that he doesn't ever do anything but study anymore; still, he berates himself when he realizes he's drifting off in the middle of class -- letting his exhausted mental gears slow and maybe spend a few minutes achingly idle. It's an evil indulgence of his to sit and stare at his desk and let time come apart around him, falling in disorganized swirls of incoherency. The wood disappears and images swim in front of his listless eyes. Maybe he's really sleeping with his eyes open.  
  
The teachers never call on him, because his glasses hide it all.  
  
--  
  
There used to be a time when Tsutsui was better at Go than Hikaru. However, by the by, the younger boy caught up to and surpassed him -- barreling forward into the future and the world of the pros without so much as a backward glance. Sometimes, when he's in his more honest moods, he can admit to himself that he resents that. To have that much potential, as well as the opportunity to develop a skill for something that you love so much is more than enviable. It was something that knew no age, wealth, health, or disposition. And while he worked so hard to get where he's trying to go, Hikaru made his otherworldly acheivements look like child's play.  
  
Then again, he's similarly peeved with Kaga, whose concern for formal education was all but zilch. Kaga had the potential and opportunity, but refused to take it. Between the two of them, Tsutsui wants to throw a tantrum and actually hit someone.  
  
Stop. Breathe. Put the book down. The stress is beginning to get to him.  
  
--  
  
A rusty shadow framed in tears of light splits his vision. Somewhere above, there is a break in the surrounding trees and a beam of moonlight strikes the ground where the fireflies are rising in a lazy tornado to the sky. In it, a flash of amber meets his eye and a smirk, cold and sensual, slowly forms against the darkness.  
  
His mouth opens of its own accord, as though he wants to say something, but there's a tumble of something the color of dried blood and--  
  
There's a hand on his shoulder. Today is the first time in months that Hikaru has gotten him to sit still in front of a goban long enough for a game, and it'd taken him 5 mintues to realize that Tsutsui was sleeping in his seat.  
  
--  
  
The future is only pleasant when one has something or someone to look forward to. The future is easier to handle when not faced on your own.  
  
The entire reason behind customs and rituals is that things that you do everyday or are dependant on are familiar and comfortable. When facing things that are strange and uncertain, as with the future, we arm ourselves with the familiar in order to give us courage.  
  
Tsutsui has few things past his daily rituals that give him comfort anymore. He hasn't had time to talk to anyone in ages -- not even his own family. All he has left is the crisp hiss of textbook pages and the slick friction of the pentip against paper.  
  
Tomorrow is the start of the testing.  
  
Now more than anything, he wants a hug.  
  
--  
  
The exams are over. He didn't get his hug, but he made it through the day without doing anything regretful. All he has to do now is wait for the results, but doing that winds him up even tighter than preparing had made him. It's worse now that he can't do anything to help himself, so he sits alone in one of the empty classrooms to collect himself.  
  
But when Kaga walks into the room with him, completely comfortable and radiating his usual, unwavering cool, Tsutsui reaches his limit. That sort of peace of mind has been evading him for longer than he cares to remember and having it flaunted in front of his face so openly hurts.  
  
When he's done crying, he feels a lot better.  
  
He never knew that Kaga could be so therapeutic.  
  
--  
  
It's sort of frightening to realize how dependant normal people are on their sense of sight. When Tsutsui's glasses fog over from the way he's crying, he automatically takes them off and tries to wipe them dry with his shirt. He also scrubs his eyes with his sleeve to clear them, trying to ignore Kaga as the other moves in to see what's the matter. When he bats at the other to make him go away, he feels hands on his shoulders and he looks up, despite himself. Tear-stained and mortified.  
  
"Ne, Tsutsui... you don't need your glasses."  
  
"I can't see without them."  
  
"Can you see me?" the question is a lot softer than he was expecting. Thoughtful.  
  
"...Yes," he returns, just as quietly, a bit startled when his glasses are plucked from his hand, gently, and Kaga's face shifts into even sharper focus.  
  
"...Then that's all you need," and something soft and warm settles over his mouth.  
  
In all honesty, however, he'll think later that he didn't need to see anything at all.  
  
* *  
  
THE END  
  
(Obligatory Disclaimer) If Hikaru no Go belonged to me, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. All original content, however, such as Tsutsui's younger sister, is copyrighted to me. I will never make money writing fics and thus shall always be poor. Donations of digital chocolates and mindless flames are welcomed instead. 


End file.
